Fast Screening for Copper‐Based Bimetallic Electrocatalysts: Efficient Electrocatalytic Reduction of CO<sub>2</sub>to C<sub>2+</sub>Products on Magnesium‐Modified Copper
Mingcan Xie, Yan Shen, Wenchao Ma, Diye Wei, Biao Zhang, Zihan Wang, Yihan Wang, Yihan Wang, Qinghong Zhang, Shunji Xie, Cheng Wang, Ye Wang, Ye Wang
Abstract
Abstract Electroreduction of CO 2 (CO 2 RR) into high value‐added chemicals is an attractive route to achieve carbon neutrality. However, the development of an efficient catalyst for CO 2 RR is still largely by trial‐and‐error and is very time‐consuming. Herein, we built an electrocatalyst testing platform featuring a home‐built automatic flow cell to accelerate the discovery of efficient catalysts. A fast screening of 109 Cu‐based bimetallic catalysts in only 55 h identifies Mg combined with Cu as the best electrocatalyst for CO 2 to C 2+ products. The thus designed Mg−Cu catalyst achieves a Faradaic efficiency (FE) of C 2+ products up to 80 % with a current density of 1.0 A cm −2 at −0.77 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Systematic experiments with in situ spectroelectrochemistry analyses show that Mg 2+ species stabilize Cu + sites during CO 2 RR and promote the CO 2 activation, thus enhancing the *CO coverage to promote C−C coupling.